Bracing for more winter weather

Municipal public works departments and the Missouri Department of Transportation replenished supplies of salt and cinders last week in time for a winter storm that, at press time, was expected to coat the region with ice and snow for the third time in four weeks.

Cape Girardeau received a shipment of 500 tons of salt, said Tim Gramling, public works director for the city. The salt delivery was part of a contract signed earlier in the year and cost the city $38 a ton, he said. If the city had tried to rebuild its supply without a contract, he said, salt would have been difficult to acquire and, if found, would have cost $70 to $100 a ton.

"It is getting really tough right now," he said. "It is not readily available."

Early in the evening, temperatures at Cape Girardeau Regional Airport were falling through the 30s. Temperatures fell about 15 degrees, from the upper 50s to the low 40s, as a cold front moved through the region shortly before noon.

A flood watch was in effect last night. A winter storm warning for most of the region north of Scott County was in place through 6 p.m. today. The National Weather Service was predicting up to half an inch of ice in the Cape Girardeau area overnight, with an additional inch of sleet. The forecast called for frozen precipitation to continue through most of the day today, adding up to 4 inches of snow and another quarter inch of ice before coming to an end sometime this evening.

The exact path of the heaviest precipitation, and timing of freezing temperatures, wasn't clear Monday afternoon, said Mike York, a forecaster with the weather service office in Paducah, Ky.

The computer models being used by the weather service aren't all showing the same conditions at the same time, York noted. That means the area could see more snow or ice, or considerably less than forecast. "There is still a high degree of uncertainty, and it is based on when the temperature gets below 32."

The possibilities included another ice storm as bad or worse than the one that hit the region Feb. 11. A forecast discussion released about 3:30 p.m. warned of possible "catastrophic icing."

The late afternoon forecast, issued just before 4 p.m., shows that the areas likely to be hit the worst include Marble Hill, Mo., and Perryville, Mo.

"The highest icing will no doubt be north and west of Cape," York said.

Jackson restocked the supply of cinders and small gravel it uses for making streets drivable, city administrator Jim Roach said Monday.

"I think we are in good shape for what is coming up," he said.

In the Feb. 11 storm, falling limbs blocked streets and highways and ripped power lines down across the region. At one point, up to 40,000 utility customers in Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois were without power. Many did not have power restored for two days or longer.

Another ice storm coated the region Feb. 21, but caused far fewer power outages.

The Missouri Department of Transportation received new supplies of salt just in time to refill storage sheds that were either empty or "down to critical stages," said Keith Gentry, maintenance superintendent for MoDOT's Southeast Missouri district.

Salt storage sheds in Butler County were completely depleted, and supplies were shifted from counties in the Bootheel that have not been as badly hit. MoDOT supplies in Cape Girardeau and Bollinger counties were not gone but needed restocking, Gentry said.

The recent warm temperatures should help, at least in the early stages of the storm, Gentry said. "The temperatures are going to be up enough that hopefully it won't take a lot of chemicals to clean it up," he said.

Statewide, winter weather cleanup has cost MoDOT $5 million more this year than the average cost for each of the past five years, Gentry said.

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126